Iran's secret nuclear weapons program revealed by Netanyahu

Iran's secret nuclear weapons program revealed by Netanyahu



Israel's prime minister says that his intelligence services have obtained documents proving that Iran has maintained a secret nuclear program in violation of a landmark agreement Tehran reached with the West.



President Donald Trump used the revelations to insist that he's been proved '100 per cent right' about Iran, minutes after Benjamin Netanyahu gave a televised address on Monday evening during which he presented documents obtained from inside Iran.



'Iran’s leaders repeatedly deny ever pursuing nuclear weapons,' said Netanyahu during a prime-time televised address carried by Israeli networks.



'Tonight I’m here to tell you one thing: Iran lied.'



Iranian state TV said on Monday that Netanyahu's accusations on Tehran's nuclear program was propaganda.



'His remarks was not new...full of baseless accusations... and propaganda against Iran's nuclear work,' state TV said.



Numerous other experts claimed all the information contained in the documents had been seen before.



Thousands of pages contained evidence that Tehran had a secret nuclear weapons program while insisting to the world its nuclear ambitions were purely peaceful, Netanyahu said.



While the lion’s share of the briefing focused on what he said was past nuclear work and alleged obfuscation about it by Iran, Netanyahu asserted that such activities had continued after the deal that was meant to curb Iranian capabilities.



The premier accused the Islamic Republic of 'brazenly lying' to the United States and Europe by maintaining nuclear materials in a secret location - a violation of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.



Israel claims that it obtained the incriminating information within the past 10 days.



After the 2015 nuclear deal was signed, the documents were moved to a 'highly secret' location in Tehran, Netanyahu said.





While the lion’s share of the briefing focused on what he said was past nuclear work and alleged obfuscation about it by Iran, Netanyahu asserted that such activities had continued after the 2015 deal that was meant to curb Iranian capabilities.



'These files conclusively prove that Iran is brazenly lying when it says it never had a nuclear weapons program,' he said.



Netanyahu said Israel recently uncovered 55,000 documents and 183 CDs of information from Iran's 'nuclear archives.'



Speaking in English, perhaps with an international audience in mind, he says the material is filled with incriminating evidence showing the Iranian program, called 'Project Amad,' was to develop a weapon.



Netanyahu’s revelations were “a big lot of nothing” according to David Patrikarakos, an Iranian nuclear politics expert.



He said the prime minister’s comments 'are entirely political, designed to put pressure on – or given a excuse to – President Trump not to recertify the nuclear deal, which he is due to do in several days.



Critically Patrikarakos says that 'Netanyahu has presented little if any evidence that Iran is in breach of the deal, merely that "past nuclear work" showed evidence of Iranian attempts at a nuclear weapons capability, which is true, and that Iran had been less than transparent in its nuclear dealings.



'All of this is well-known, what he has failed to show is that Iran is in violation of the nuclear deal signed it was signed in 2016.



'It may give Trump the excuse he needs, but it will not wash with the other parties to the deal namely France, Germany, the UK, Russia and China.'



Netanyahu wants the deal to fail because he has staked some much political capital on that outcome and wants the US and Iran at loggerheads as it helps Israel geopolitically, said Patrikarakos, author of Nuclear Iran: The Birth of an Atomic State, the first complete history of Iran’s nuclear program from it’s beginnings in the 1950s to the present day, and war in 140 Characters: How Social Media Is Reshaping Conflict in The 21st Century.



While Netanyahu presented the information as new, the details of Project Amad were known to Western governments well before the 2015 nuclear deal, according to The Atlantic.



In 2011, the International Atomic Energy Agency published findings about Project Amad, which was shut down by the Iranians in 2003.



The French ambassador to Washington, Gerard Araud, tweeted that information about past Iranian nuclear activity was in fact an argument in favor of the nuclear deal, not against it.



Trump is to decide by May 12 whether to pull out of the international deal with Iran.



Federica Mogherini, the head of the European Union's foreign policy portfolio, said that it appears Netanyahu's presentation did not demonstrate that Iran was violating the nuclear deal.



'What I have seen from the first reports is that Prime Minister Neta